Where would you put an outdoor library in Columbia? colatoday.6amcity.com/outdoors/… The concept is taking over South Korea’s capital city. We’re thinking about where we’d copy it in Soda City.
ALA and League of Women Voters release Civic Collaboration Guide www.ala.org/news/2025…
The Library That Saved a Life www.ebsco.com/blogs/nov… “The library was my one happy place,” says Elsa Sjunneson. “It was the thing that could just sort of keep me from wanting to leave the planet.”
What do librarians look like? Stereotyping of a profession by generative AI
What do librarians look like? Stereotyping of a profession by generative AI
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.11…
The Cost of Neglect: How Poor Library Facilities Undermine Public Trust and Community Impact
Sensory-Friendly Libraries: Building Spaces & Building Belonging sites.psu.edu/sensoryfr…
“Welcome to the project site for the sensory-friendly library initiative at the Penn State Libraries! Our hope is to build sensory rooms in our libraries for all of our students to use for the benefit of their wellness, with a special emphasis on creating a culture of support for neurodiverse students with severe sensory needs (Penn State News Release). We are also building a Virtual Sensory Room (https://sites.psu.edu/virtualsensoryroom/) that anyone is welcome to visit. The goal is to move our libraries closer to sensory social justice, the ideal that each individual should be able to modulate the flow of information from the environment in ways that optimize their cognitive processing and well-being.”
Going around in Circles: Interrogating Librarians’ Spheres of Concern, Influence, and Control
www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2025/circ…
In Brief: The practice placing one’s anxieties into circles of concern, influence, and control can be found in philosophy, psychology, and self-help literature. It is a means of cultivating agency and preventing needless rumination. For librarians, however, it is often at odds with a profession that expects continuous expansion of responsibilities. To reconcile this conflict, it is useful to look back at the original intent of this model, assess the present library landscape through its lens, and imagine a future in which library workers truly feel in control of their vocation.
Discover how one father’s emotional tribute to a beloved public library captures the power of community, storytelling, and lifelong learning.
magazine.1000libraries.com/dads-love…
Saving Stories: My First Week at the Baldwin Library by Aryssa Damron
“This story can now live and breathe and be read and enjoyed again, not just studied and researched by those who happen to be in Gainesville. I felt like I had unlocked some sort of secret assignment to my research–I wasn’t just looking at the published, well-known prose of Margaret Sidney for my research, I was also getting the chance to bring her lesser known work, some of which was never digitized, into the 21st century.”
Supporting Library Employees Through Grief [a research paper]
“Libraries may not typically have policies around bereavement leave or expressions of grief. Likewise, employees who are not bereaved may have no idea how to a colleague in mourning. This article aims to briefly examine what grief and mourning look like and how libraries can support employees through such difficult times.”
Meet the TikTok Librarian Championing Literacy and Mental Health
magazine.1000libraries.com/meet-the-…
Meet Mychal Threets – the librarian, social media personality, mental health activist, and children’s author, making libraries safe, inclusive spaces for all.
Jolys Regional Library in St Pierre MB officially opens its doors at new location
steinbachonline.com/articles/…
St. Pierre Councillor Marc Proulx was all smiles during the grand opening event, which included a community BBQ and tours of the new space.
“First of all, by having our own facility, that means we gain control of what’s happening in there,” said Proulx. “Like the kinds of things we do for the kids, activities for seniors, bilingual programs. It’s not that our relationship with the school division wasn’t good, it’s just now we can set our own direction.”
Kitchener library serving life skills in new teaching kitchen
“Some people may look at the program and think, ‘Oh, they’re just chopping things. They’re just mixing things.’ But we try to include some social/emotional learning into it,” explained Chanelle Seguin, a children’s programmer for the Kitchener Public Library.
Girls play baseball at this Montreal park. The city wants to turn it into a library www.cbc.ca/player/pl… The City of Montreal plans to turn one of the baseball fields in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough into a library. Parents and coaches say that will make it harder for young players, especially girls, to practise the sport.
Journal Article: “Shaping Public Library Legitimacy: Case Analysis of the New York Public Library” www.infodocket.com/2025/08/0… The aim of this case study was to empirically elucidate the core elements underpinning the legitimacy of twenty-first-century public libraries, with a particular focus on the New York Public Library (NYPL). We conducted a qualitative content analysis of 24 NYPL annual reports spanning the period from 2000 to 2023 to investigate the ways in which legitimacy is expressed at NYPL and explore the interrelationships among the dimensions of library legitimacy. A coding framework, grounded in the established legitimacy dimensions from Yamagishi, Koizumi, and Larsen’s (2024) research, was utilized alongside a periodization approach to assess how these dimensions interact during key historical events. We examined the NYPL’s reported practices through the lens of five primary dimensions of legitimacy. Analyzing how these practices are reported in annual reports revealed how these dimensions interact and evolve in response to significant societal challenges, including the 9/11 attacks, the global financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The research findings highlight the critical role of both internal factors (such as librarianship) and external influences (such as economic conditions) in sustaining the overall legitimacy of public libraries. This case study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the complex and dynamic nature of legitimacy in public libraries and demonstrates how these institutions can adapt to and reflect broader societal changes. The findings hold important implications for the development and management of public libraries on a global scale.
How a public library’s summer game took over a Michigan city www.npr.org/2025/08/0…
Age-friendly recognition for Clara library staff [Ireland] www.offalyindependent.ie/2025/08/0…
Lycoming County Library System [PA] to participate in National Night Out.
“The Lycoming County Library System will bring its outreach vehicle to Fairlawn Community Church for the county’s National Night Out event on Aug. 5.
The event, hosted by the Lycoming Regional Police Department, is a community gathering in which neighbors can get to know each other and their local law enforcement officers in a casual environment.” www.northcentralpa.com/community…
Celebrate Disability Pride Year-Round through Collection Development.
This Disability Pride Month marks the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). However, the fact that I spend most of my time in school libraries (open every month except July) and that my blog falls at the end of the month is good reason to celebrate Disability Pride year-round through collection development. www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2025…
I just love what the Milwaukee Public Library is doing on Instagram to promote it’s collections. www.instagram.com/reel/DMso…